Enel is Open Power

Summary

What is the role of an energy utility today? In 1950, Italy witnessed the spread of the first refrigerators in households. Today, those same households are now connecting to the Internet via smartphone. This technological quantum leap is surprising, but what is even more surprising is that all this would not be possible without energy.

Open Power embodies Enel’s vision for its role in this new global scenario. And the first step in this direction has been opening up the company especially to people and technologies to succeed in managing the global energy transition rather than having to catch up with it.

To communicate the Open Power vision, alongside a rebranding effort, Enel has chosen to transform all the Group websites by changing from a corporate-centric rationale typical of large utilities to the Open Power customer-centric perspective. This is a first for a large Italian company listed on the Stock Exchange. We have chosen not to deliver the Open Power message through the usual paid media campaign, but to build something that breaks away completely from the past, something that has the potential to surprise, generating buzz around it (earned media).

The goal is to allow users to experience Open Power through a relationship with Enel and not through the usual advertising campaign. Open Power becomes a living concept that can be experienced, just like energy.

This has meant making a huge effort. In just 12 months, starting from enel.com, 13 websites around the world—10 company websites, 2 commercial websites and 1 corporate portal— have been entirely revamped with an Open Power UX and a novel Content Strategy that shifts the focus of Enel’s corporate communication from information to brand journalism. This process has involved a total of 9 countries, 6 different languages and over 400 people.

Strategy

After 18 years, the historic logo designed by Bob Noorda has now made way for the new global identity designed by the London-based brand consulting firm Wolff Olins. The rebranding effort, however, has not been limited simply to a new logo. Taking the cue from Enel’s world view epitomised by Open Power, the rebranding concept has identified a metaphor of energy: the cursor and its unceasing movement—energy as kinetics—that leaves a trail of colour—energy as light spectrum. The cursor traces the logo which does not exist by itself without movement—a metaphor of electricity and the digital world we live in. This is the starting point to communicate Open Power. How did we do it?

By creating a place where you can experience Open Power.

The front-end of the new websites had to be created through the cursor sharing its language built on movement and colour.

The front-end had to be open to all. That means being fast and having the best possible UX so that anyone can establish a relationship with us regardless of their digital skills and device.

The relationship should not be built on what the company wants to say, but on what users want to hear. That’s why contents that tell about how the world is changing and how Enel is a part of change and not Press Releases or Investor Relations are at the heart of the new relationship.

Open Power is not about Italy. It's about the world. That's why the change involved 9 countries.

Open Power is not a communication campaign but the very essence of the company. That's why even websites that you would never have expected, like the Global Procurement website, have become Open Power, too.

Objectives

Towards our customers: surprising users who are used to the slowness and complexity of an energy utility with 65 million customers around the world which for decades has been forced to react to change without being able to anticipate it.

Towards our shareholders: the new websites are both a place to establish a relationship with the brand and to experience Open Power and tangible proof of the change of gear implemented by the company’s CEO, Francesco Starace: a website that provides living proof of Enel’s aim to anticipate change rather than reacting to it.

Toward our employees: we are proud of our work and we consider it the best content to share with others: these are the stories of the people who put Enel at the centre of the relationship.

Operations

We mapped all of Enel’s digital properties around the world, including social media channels. Today, instead of 179 digital properties without a shared UI, UX and content strategy, we now have a new consistent and rewarding digital experience that is the same at global level. We have created and launched the new global identity to underscore the radical change of approach that is embodied by the Open Power concept.

We have adopted brand-new methodologies taken from the world of lean software development and lean start-up to be rapid despite the complexity we are called to manage. This has allowed Enel to have a short time-to-market. In less than twelve months, we have completed the overhaul of our corporate website and of our company and commercial websites in 12 countries.

Consistency is ensured through a Global Digital Library that we have created for the purpose. It is a repository where all partners, from the art directors to the developers, in all countries can find the graphics, codes and best practices that make the Open Power experience. This library also includes all the digital assets necessary for the development of the website, including the layouts, psd files and even the HTML packages with the code to use within the website.

Finally, to be true to our Open Power essence, we have made a courageous choice: in keeping with Enel’s total and radical customer-centricity, we have also created the first website that combines the corporate and commercial parts into a single touchpoint, namely a single hub for users and a single contact point with Enel for any need.

Creative Insight

Mobile-First, User-Centric Approach and Minimum Viable Product are three terms usually associated with the development of products by a start-up. We have chosen to use them to reach results that are radically different from those achieved throughout the course of Enel's history in just a short time span.

The project was broken down into 4 stages:

Discovery: decoding the target;

Foundation: charting a plan;

Design and development: ready for the rollout;

Continuous optimization: monitoring, measuring and improving.

The result is a lean interface that is built entirely around the cursor—colour and movement—which has eliminated all the complexity of an approach based on isolated compartments typical of large multinationals.

Results

The project saw the go-live of 13 websites in 12 months, including a website for Global Procurement, one for Enel Green Power, 8 company websites, 2 commercial websites and the Enel.com corporate portal.

The languages involved in the project were Italian, English, Spanish, Romanian, Russian and Portuguese.

During the go-live of the new Open Power website, over a 3-day period alone, 16 million people were engaged in conversations in Italy about the brand and the website on social media channels (Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, blogs, etc.)